At Ravinia, the world ends in glorious Wagnerian song

Classical review: Wagner's Ring Hits

July 03, 2010|By John von Rhein | Classical music critic

At a time when seemingly every major city on the planet is mounting a "Ring of the Nibelung" cycle, or planning to, Lyric Opera has elected to bide its time before embarking on another production of Richard Wagner's masterpiece. Which may be prudent, given the enormous costs involved as well as the dearth of international voices equipped to handle the fiercely demanding roles of the gods, goddesses, heroes and villains that populate the massive, daunting, 15-hour tetralogy.

And so Ravinia Festival offered a kind of "Ring Lite" (minus two operas) on Wednesday evening that consisted of concert excerpts from the cycle's final music dramas, "Siegfried" and "Gotterdammerung," enlisting two credible pretenders to the Wagnerian vocal throne, Christine Brewer as Brunnhilde and John Treleaven as Siegfried. James Conlon, fresh from conducting a series of "Ring" cycles in May and June at his Los Angeles Opera, led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with energy, musical insight and dramatic conviction.

One's pleasure in hearing one of the world's great Wagnerian "pit" bands playing this glorious music from center stage, along with the full-throated singing of the soloists, was mingled with dismay at the smallish audience. Wagner remains a tough sell on the North Shore. The "Ringheads" in attendance cheered lustily, as if to compensate for the acres of empty seats.

Both Brewer and Treleaven have racked up mileage singing heavyweight German repertory at the Lyric, the American soprano as the Dyer's Wife in Strauss' "Die Frau ohne Schatten" in 2007, the British heldentenor as Siegfried in Lyric's most recent "Ring" cycle in 2005. What's more, Treleaven just completed a run of Siegfrieds in the L.A. "Ring."

Brewer's gleaming, opulent sound was thrilling to hear in the final scene of "Siegfried," in which the now-mortal warrior-maiden awakens from her long slumber to behold her conquering hero. In the long ensuing duet, she and Treleaven rode the mighty crests of Wagner's plush orchestration without having to force. Their voices were well matched, and while his sound tended to be dry and a few pitches veered off center, his tenor remained firm, focused and attentive to the text.

Treleaven returned after intermission to deliver the doomed Siegfried's final lines of epiphany in Act 3 of "Gotterdammerung" —making the most of them — before Conlon segued to a properly weighty and majestic account of the Funeral Music.

Then came Brunnhilde's Immolation, which concludes the opera as well as the "Ring" itself. Brewer brought a powerfully thrusting tone, lovely lyrical counterforce and immense dignity to the scene. Here we have Brunnhilde lamenting the loss of her lover and betrayer even as she prepares to sacrifice herself to redeem a corrupt world she's about to set ablaze. Brewer built to a sustained, ecstatic climax that earned her a roaring ovation.

Conlon and the CSO came in for plenty of applause on their own, not least for their mettlesome account of the Prologue to "Gotterdammerung," in which dawn broke with blinding radiance before Siegfried set forth on his fateful Rhine journey. Giant screens in the pavilion carried a running translation (very helpful in Wagner) along with close-ups of the singers, conductor and orchestra.